Call the coroner. Megaupload is DEAD AND GONE. The Feds said “SHUT IT DOWN,” and the outcry has been enormous. Before you freak about how you’re going to watch HBO now, the file-sharing site, whose CEO was recently revealed to be Swizz Beatz (just like the rest of us, he doesn’t think his own albums are worth a cent), already has a new site that can be found at Megaupload.bz, which will hopefully be able to avoid the fate of its predecessor.

But things are getting heated. In retaliation for the takedown, the well-known pranksters referred to as Anonymous claim to be behind the outages of many websites. RIAA, Universal Music, and the Justice Department were the first ones to go, and now BMI, the US Copyright Office, MPAA.org, EMI, the FBI, and HADOPI, a French authority, have joined the “involuntary #SOPAblackout”. This is by far the largest takedown of sites that Anonymous has ever carried out, as they DDoS the piss out of the big wigs.

Gawker has more details on how you might be unintentionally taking down sites yourself by clicking on the links that Anonymous is posting on its Twitter account. Read Anonymous’ statement about all the attacks from today here.